• Experienced local proven guides committed to your fishing success.
• Courtesy transfers from accommodation to and from the boat ramp.
• Transport in an AMSA registered 6.2m, 5.56m and 4.5m commercial plate alloy vessel with regularly serviced Yamaha outboards, electric motors and Garmin sounders.
• Lunch, snacks, drinks & water.
• Fishing equipment (lost lures to be replaced at $25 a lure).

What to Bring

• SunSmart clothing & hat.
• Sunnies (quality polaroids preferable).
• Water bottle (we provided cold water).
• Quality rain jacket.
• A warm coat that can be removed as the day heats up. Not required Nov-Feb.
• Your own food only if you have special dietary requirements.
• Beer if you want a few.

What happens in a typical day?

• You get picked up from accommodation or we meet at the ramp/fuel station.
• You complete a safety brief and sign waiver form (first time visitors).
• We travel to the boat ramp and launch.
• We travel to fishing area – up to 50km of boat travel at times!
• We collect livebait with your assistance (if livebait fishing).
• We drive to various locations and sound around to find fish. Sometimes fish are found at the first spot, but often we may have to spend an hour or more finding a good patch of quality fish.
• You hopefully catch a few fish!
• We continue to move spots when the fishing gets quiet or if the fish don’t play the game.
• You fish several other locations until the time is up!
• You guide can fillet the fish if you have selected this option and they agree to offer this service.
• We travel back to the ramp, load the boat and travel home.

Time and duration of your charter

• Courtesy pick-up is offered from accommodation in Rockhampton or we can meet at a local petrol station or a nominated boat ramp, depending on your particular circumstances.
• We generally depart from Nerimbera ramp or ramps at Port Alma. Nerimbera Ramp is 15 minutes from Rockhampton CBD and ramps at Port Alma are 50 minutes from Rockhampton CBD.
• The fishing charter will generally kick off sometime between 5-7AM and this will be confirmed via text or phone call just before your trip.
• Charter duration for a full day charter is 8 hours from pick-up to drop off in Rockhampton.
• Please note that the drive to Port Alma ramp from Rockhampton takes nearly 2 hours each day out of your fishing day.
• We can offer an extended day option of 10-11 hours at an additional cost. Please let us know if you are interested in an extended day to make the most of your time on the water.

Catch rate – what to expect on a good, bad or average day – size and numbers

The Fitzroy is the second largest seaward draining catchment in Australia and as such is an extensive system with hundreds of kilometres of waterways. It is also a big fish system thanks to its size and the fact that it has been a gill net free zone since 2016. However, there is also lots of water between these fish!!
The sounder technology used to locate fish also means that fish targeted are generally going to be on the larger end of the spectrum. A great deal of time in your day is likely to be spent locating small to large patches of these bigger fish. It is not uncommon to spend most of the day searching for your trophy fish and only a couple of hours fishing for them! We encourage you to relax, enjoy the scenery and ask questions about this part of the hunting as it all helps tip the odds of getting a good fish in your favour.

Most barra caught on charters range from 70cm to 120cm. Most king threadfin caught on charters are from 70cm to 145cm. Our focus is on getting clients these bigger fish. Some of you will have fished remote top end barra lodges, where large numbers of small to medium sized fish are the focus and cricket scores are sometimes accomplished. This is unlikely to be the case in a charter with Guided Fishing DownUnder, based on our fishery and our style of guiding. What can you expect? Around 6-10 king and barra in the 75-120cm range will come over the side in an exceptional day, around 3-5 king and barra in the 75-120cm range in an average to good day and 1-2 barra and king in the 75-120cm range in a harder day.

The only exception is winter, where the fishing technique applied results in catch rates being better but the size class can be less than seen at other times of year.

These results are using a mix of livebait and lures. Those wanting to lure fish may experience similar numbers when the conditions are right, but lure fishing will often result in less numbers of fish. The quality of the fish is not reduced when lure fishing. Read more about lure fishing below. Generally, the numbers of fish caught do not increase with more people in the boat, so divide the numbers of fish above by the number of people fishing in your group to get an indication of the likely catch per person per day! Based on previous results, there is a 95% success rate with at least one decent barra or king being caught for the day, so around 1 in 20 days will be a donut day.

Another way to get an idea of what to expect is to look through the Guided Fishing DownUnder Facebook or Instagram page to see the type of captures being posted for each day. You will note some days are better than others and that most of the fish are of high quality and this is what you should expect in terms of size and quantity of fish caught on your charter if you book.
If this meets your expectations – then get in contact! If not, then please do not book!

Fishing Styles

Livebaiting

The best results often come from livebait fishing or a mix of livies and lures, particularly for those who don’t fish regularly with lures. However, it takes time to collect livebait for you with a cast net at the start of the day and sometimes this is not easy! All the gear is provided for livebaiting along with the guidance on the best technique to use for hooking and landing your fish. Please let us know if you would like to focus on livebaiting when booking.

Mix of Livebaiting & Luring

This is probably the most effective way to get good results for proficient treble tossers that don’t mind using livies as well. Note both details for livebaiting above and lure fishing below. Lost lures attract a $25 fee per lost lure. Please bring cash to settle this at the end of each day with your guide. Please let us know if you would like to focus on a mix of livebaiting and luring when booking.

Lure Fishing

Lure fishing is a great way to catch barra and king and can be particularly effective. There is nothing better than getting that bite on a lure. However, as discussed earlier, the Fitzroy is a big fish system rather than a river that delivers larger numbers of fish.

Those who are experienced lure casters with the tenacity and fitness to cast all day for one or two opportunities will fare well. Those who can’t cast long distances with reasonable accurately and who lose interest quickly will not enjoy lure fishing in the Fitzroy.

Lack of attention at the right moment may result in missing the all-important ‘tick’ of a lure being inhaled by a quality barra or king, resulting in the lure being spat out again before you get a chance to strike.

With the exception of using live technology, almost all the lure fishing done in the Fitzroy is based on longer searching casts, with larger presentations to attract that trophy sized fish. Due to the type of system the Fitzroy is, with expansive waterways, large mudflats and deep ledges paired with large tides, we generally don’t do much short high precision lure casting into mangroves with short rods and baitcasters.

Long spin and baitcast outfits, paired with quality 20-30lb braid capable of casting larger lures are recommended and provided for clients to use. Good quality lures fitted with strong barra hooks are also provided. The last thing you want is to lose that one good fish to a bent treble after casting all day. You are welcome to bring your own luring outfits and lures if you make sure of
the following:

• Go for a longer 6.6ft+ baitcaster or 7ft+ spin rods designed to be able to cast 100-200mm lures with matching mid to high end reels capable of running 150-250m of 30lb braid and light enough to be used all day. Don’t worry if you don’t have an outfit like this – we provide them as part of the
  service.
• Lost lures attract a $25 fee per lure. Please bring enough cash or to settle this fee at the end of each day. In all but the most extreme cases you will only lose 1-2 lures maximum a day. We carry an extendable 5m lure retrieving pole that retrieves most lures not lost to fish, sent deep into the mangroves by overenthusiastic casts or thrown too far over shallow rockbars. Please let us know when booking that you are a capable and persistent angler/group of anglers who want to lure fish all day.
• Let us know how many outfits are being brought and the type, so these can be complemented.
• Select hardbody, paddletail and soft vibe lure presentations primarily in the 100-200mm range and swap out the hooks to quality VMC or decoy trebles if they don’t come with them out of the packet.
• Better still, leave the lures up to us and pay a $25 fee per lure if you lose them, other than your favourite half a dozen go-to barra and king lures! We carry hundreds of lures on the vessel, each selected and carried for a particular proven application in the Fitzroy.
• Use at least 30lb braid, making sure it is new or in very good condition and that it is full or almost fully spooled.

Keeping & Filleting Fish

First you must catch a fish!! While every effort is made to help you in this respect – it’s called fishing and not catching for a reason.

• Catch and release fishing is supported!!
• This charter experience is not about filling your freezer with heaps of fish.

• Please look at ‘reef’ style meat gathering fishing trips if you want to
  catch and keep heaps of fish.
• However, keeping a fish or two each day for a feed is supported.

The number of fish you can keep is dependent on the size of the fish as only a certain amount of room and ice is available on the vessel. For example, there is enough room for 1-3 good sized king/barra. This is a daily limit and subject to all other QLD rules and regulations.

• Barra over a metre will not be kept.

You are welcome to take the fish whole and process it at home – just make sure the esky you bring is big enough to carry the fish!

If you are not a proficient filleter, then the filleting can be done for you at an
additional cost of $25 per fish to be paid to the guide on the day. Please note that Queensland regulations for ‘fin fish other than coral reef’, like king threadfin and barramundi, requires that the skin is left on the fish until it is brought to shore and that skinned fish can’t be returned to the boat.

Your whole fillet with skin, pin bones and scales attached will be placed in a large zip-lock bag and kept cool until you get dropped off. You will need to debone, skin/scale and portion the fish up yourself after this, so please bring your own equipment to do these tasks. If you don’t know how to skin, debone and care for fish to keep it safe to eat, then please focus on catch and release fishing.

Please let us know if you are interested in us filleting the fish and bring enough cash to pay for this at the end of the day should the service be required.

What is the availability like for charters?

Nathan is generally booked out 1-2 years in advance and requires a two day minimum booking. Other guides have better availability and may be available for a single day booking, but if you want the best dates for each set of tides, then its best to get in early. Minimum two day bookings are recommended in any case as the system can be variable at times and we want to see you catch that trophy fish!

We only offer barra and king charters 5-10 days each fortnight as these are the ones with suitable tides to give you the best chance of success. We generally won’t run charters for any day that has an unfavourable tide that would impact the success rates for clients, unless you tell us you are willing to take that risk.

Most of our clients want to be able to target both barra and king threadfin. While king threadfin are a year-round prospect, unfortunately due to outdated government policies, barramundi are not able to be intentionally targeted in Queensland for 3 months during one of their more active times. This barramundi closed season takes November, December and January off the table for those wanting barra. The June some years can be too cold for barra, particularly if we can’t catch live prawn for bait.